Two weekends make a vacation... maybe?
Sep. 3rd, 2023 07:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lyornGoodness, September already.
August vacations in my place of work are normally reserved for those who want to attend events that happen to be in August, or for those with school-aged children. The rest keeps the steady tasks running, or does some tidying up.
I neither have children, and this year, no event (next year I plan to be at the World Con in Glasgow), but I still managed to get some vacation-like activities.
Kayaking and a thunderstorm (or not)
I went kayaking with R___ on some Thursday, the same tour I missed out on three weeks earlier with my co-workers (because I was not sure if I would be up to it, physically). We had far better weather: Warm, but not too hot, and mostly sunny. It was quite fun and quite exciting, as we are both very bad at paddling. It's a good thing that these kayaks are made for people who are bad at paddling: More like Canadian canoes (wide, and open on top), stable, robust, and forgiving, and handling like ox carts. We did not capsize, and I wonder how my co-workers even managed.
At the end of the ~2 hour tour, we were soaking wet from shovelling water on our heads with the paddles. The rental shop picked up the kayaks and the paddlers and returned them to the starting point, where we tried to swim in the river, but it was too cold (15°C, which is about 60°F, I guess?). So we went for iced coffee instead and drove back to R___'s place when the sky started to get dark grey and thunder was heard in the distance. I had to get home from there on my motor scooter in wet trainers and a summer dress, and decided I'd rather wait out the thunderstorm inside.
R___s Ukrainian houseguests made pancakes with jam and shared them with us. The thunderstorm did not come and did not go until I lost patience, got on my scooter and rode home, counting the seconds between lightning and thunder. Usually you would not be too worried at 12 to 14 seconds time difference... only, the lighting was right over me from cloud to cloud, covering half the sky. Oops.
Still, nothing bad happened, and I got home safely and without even getting rained on. Next day I learned from the newspaper that the next city over had its underpasses flooded (cars had no time to get out in some cases and people had to be rescued from the roofs of their floating cars), at least two villages were cut off, and all that. Weather can be weird in summer.
A short trip to Berlin
R___ is currently caring for a house in a suburb of Berlin, which means she goes there about every second weekend, declutters a flat, arranges for maintenance and repairs in the house, and keeps the tenants mostly happy. The house is right at one of the many lakes surrounding Berlin, so I said I'd come visiting some time in summer to keep her company, and we could go swimming.
I had one very long weekend off work (Thursday to Monday), so I took the train to Berlin, first to visit my uncle, then to meet R__. We spent half a day in Kreuzberg (an inner city district of Berlin, it used to be enclosed by the Wall on three sides) and went to my favourite bookstore (I bought six books this time, which is less than usual). We went swimming, and took a long walk, and I do not think I was much help, but R___ did not complain.
Hot water, for a change
The next (= this) weekend, Ceridwen and I had planned to hear Fiddler's Green play at Bad Staffelstein on Friday, and make that a short vacation: Leave work early on Friday, hear the concert, spend two nights in a nice B&B, go to the spa (natural hot springs below the town) on Saturday, maybe walk up the Staffelberg if the weather was not too hot or too wet.
Only, the band's singer got ill late August, and the concert was moved to next year. But we had the B&B booked, so we did all the other things we had planned.
The hot spring feeding the spa has a temperature of 53°C, and 12% minerals, mostly, of course, simple salt. For the pools, it gets diluted to 3.5%, and 34 to 36°C. There's also an inhalation room, and a steam room, as well as a great lot of saunas, but we skipped those. I used to hate being in water that warm, but I've gotten a lot older and thinner since then, and when you are cold most of the time and your joints hurt, hot water starts to look (and feel) much better. So we spend a whole afternoon there.
Today, we actually managed to walk up the Staffelberg. It's only 140 m of altitude above the nearest parking lot, but it's quite steep, and most of the main path up is broken stone. It was a good thing that we set out early: Around noon there were so many people and mountain e-bikes up there that there were queues of people who wanted to take selfies on the rocks. We took a longer and more difficult path back down, with no mountain bikes at all.
And that was my (kind of) summer vacation, and all in all it was not too bad. (Tully disagrees. He wants his human to spend vacations on the sofa.)
August vacations in my place of work are normally reserved for those who want to attend events that happen to be in August, or for those with school-aged children. The rest keeps the steady tasks running, or does some tidying up.
I neither have children, and this year, no event (next year I plan to be at the World Con in Glasgow), but I still managed to get some vacation-like activities.
Kayaking and a thunderstorm (or not)
I went kayaking with R___ on some Thursday, the same tour I missed out on three weeks earlier with my co-workers (because I was not sure if I would be up to it, physically). We had far better weather: Warm, but not too hot, and mostly sunny. It was quite fun and quite exciting, as we are both very bad at paddling. It's a good thing that these kayaks are made for people who are bad at paddling: More like Canadian canoes (wide, and open on top), stable, robust, and forgiving, and handling like ox carts. We did not capsize, and I wonder how my co-workers even managed.
At the end of the ~2 hour tour, we were soaking wet from shovelling water on our heads with the paddles. The rental shop picked up the kayaks and the paddlers and returned them to the starting point, where we tried to swim in the river, but it was too cold (15°C, which is about 60°F, I guess?). So we went for iced coffee instead and drove back to R___'s place when the sky started to get dark grey and thunder was heard in the distance. I had to get home from there on my motor scooter in wet trainers and a summer dress, and decided I'd rather wait out the thunderstorm inside.
R___s Ukrainian houseguests made pancakes with jam and shared them with us. The thunderstorm did not come and did not go until I lost patience, got on my scooter and rode home, counting the seconds between lightning and thunder. Usually you would not be too worried at 12 to 14 seconds time difference... only, the lighting was right over me from cloud to cloud, covering half the sky. Oops.
Still, nothing bad happened, and I got home safely and without even getting rained on. Next day I learned from the newspaper that the next city over had its underpasses flooded (cars had no time to get out in some cases and people had to be rescued from the roofs of their floating cars), at least two villages were cut off, and all that. Weather can be weird in summer.
A short trip to Berlin
R___ is currently caring for a house in a suburb of Berlin, which means she goes there about every second weekend, declutters a flat, arranges for maintenance and repairs in the house, and keeps the tenants mostly happy. The house is right at one of the many lakes surrounding Berlin, so I said I'd come visiting some time in summer to keep her company, and we could go swimming.
I had one very long weekend off work (Thursday to Monday), so I took the train to Berlin, first to visit my uncle, then to meet R__. We spent half a day in Kreuzberg (an inner city district of Berlin, it used to be enclosed by the Wall on three sides) and went to my favourite bookstore (I bought six books this time, which is less than usual). We went swimming, and took a long walk, and I do not think I was much help, but R___ did not complain.
Hot water, for a change
The next (= this) weekend, Ceridwen and I had planned to hear Fiddler's Green play at Bad Staffelstein on Friday, and make that a short vacation: Leave work early on Friday, hear the concert, spend two nights in a nice B&B, go to the spa (natural hot springs below the town) on Saturday, maybe walk up the Staffelberg if the weather was not too hot or too wet.
Only, the band's singer got ill late August, and the concert was moved to next year. But we had the B&B booked, so we did all the other things we had planned.
The hot spring feeding the spa has a temperature of 53°C, and 12% minerals, mostly, of course, simple salt. For the pools, it gets diluted to 3.5%, and 34 to 36°C. There's also an inhalation room, and a steam room, as well as a great lot of saunas, but we skipped those. I used to hate being in water that warm, but I've gotten a lot older and thinner since then, and when you are cold most of the time and your joints hurt, hot water starts to look (and feel) much better. So we spend a whole afternoon there.
Today, we actually managed to walk up the Staffelberg. It's only 140 m of altitude above the nearest parking lot, but it's quite steep, and most of the main path up is broken stone. It was a good thing that we set out early: Around noon there were so many people and mountain e-bikes up there that there were queues of people who wanted to take selfies on the rocks. We took a longer and more difficult path back down, with no mountain bikes at all.
And that was my (kind of) summer vacation, and all in all it was not too bad. (Tully disagrees. He wants his human to spend vacations on the sofa.)
(no subject)
Date: 2023-09-03 08:39 pm (UTC)That sounds like a great outing this weekend! I love the Bad Staffelstein baths because they're warmer than most. And the Staffelberg is pretty nice! I haven't been there in ages, but I remember liking it a lot.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-09-03 09:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-09-03 09:36 pm (UTC)